Category: Universals Archive

Universal 211: nominative alignment ⇒ case (Nom/Acc) & personal affix (SUB) Original The most important implications of the nominative type are: the single “subject” series…

Universal 227: Original If a language has only affixes which derive causatives form intransitive verbs, it is unlikely that these affixes will have a permissive…

Universal 243: Du (verb) ⇒ Du (noun) Original If verbs inflect for dual number, nouns inflect for dual number as well. Standardized IF verbs inflect…

Universal 259: primary topicalization ⇒ accusative alignment Original In ergative and active languages only secondary topicalization, by means of changing the word order in the…

Universal 275: category X (Trial) ⇒ category X (Dual) Original In all languages: if there is any grammatical opposition in the forms of Trial, the…

Universal 291: ezâfe ⇒ possessive declension V article Original If there are ezâfe constructions, there is possessive declension (pronominal enclitics or proclitics with the meaning…

Universal 307: Original If active and passive voices differ in verb form, then the corresponding constructions differ from each other in form of at least…

Universal 323: Original If the verb agrees with subject and object and there are forms with the following arrangement of agreement affixes: s-o-V and o-V-s,…

Universal 339: Original If number is expressed in a prefixal part of a confix, then it is also expressed in its suffixal part. Standardized IF…

Universal 355: (o-V-s) & ¬(s-V-o) ⇒ dominant order is SOV Original In the languages where the verb agrees with subject and object, if there are…